From: Jim Menard <jimm@...>
Date: 2004-03-23T03:19:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Need some advice on PickAxe II

Dave Thomas <dave@pragprog.com> writes:

> So, here's the question: is this the way to go? Are folks happy seeing 
> this kind of synoptic information in the book, and then referring to 
> the online or local documentation for the details? (Don't worry about 
> the built-in stuff: I'm keeping the existing format for all of that, so 
> you'll still have the complete method listing for String, Array, and 
> friends).

The PDF looks great. I like the "cookbook" summary. That, paired with the new
RDocs, will be a great combination.

I'm glad you're keeping the core classes (String, Array, and friends). The
HTML version of the built-in classes page from version 1 stays on my Bookmarks
Bar and is heavily referenced.

If you decide to release version 2 of the Pickaxe book electronically, it
would be wonderful to be able to provide links between it and the RDoc
documentation. When I'm looking at the new cookbook, I imagine my next stop
would be the RDocs to get the dirty details. I'm not sure how that would be
possible, though. The book couldn't link to my local copy of the RDocs, of
course: that can live different places on different systems. Perhaps the
electronic version of the book could come with a snapshot of the RDocs.

Jim
-- 
Jim Menard, jimm@io.com, http://www.io.com/~jimm/
"Mind you, deep in the IBM VM operating system source we once found a
comment that said 'remember to collect laundry on way home'."
    -- Alan J. Flavell in comp.lang.perl.misc